After putting in a claim at corporate... this is where we stand. They are replacing the transmission & transfer case, but tell us that if they damage the catalytic converter brakets which they have to take off to get to the repairs, they will make us pay the $2000 for to replace the converter! Is that insane??? I think they just keep shifting the $2000 around to other items to cover costs. The car has been there 5 days....We had to tell them to go ahead with the work even though they will be charging us. I am still going to fight it because it is just crazy! I used the JD Power Service Index Ranking which is shameful and the automotive news article of March 1, 2010 that talks about coroporate offering $$ to dealers to boost repeat business and please the customer at all costs....guess they were absent that day because no one cares!!!!! They are actually RUDE!

Today I got a phone call from nissan's consumer affairs that they have conveniently rejected my written request to offer assistance in overcoming the high cost of the transfer case replacement. My transfer case went down in middle of Feb. having had just 200 miles over the 60K miles warranty coverage. Ouch, it cost me 3K to get it replaced by the dealership.

Needless to say, I would be very much interested to join a class action or any type of legal action if you need support. I am thinking of even sending a letter to consumer affairs department or any other watch dog authority hoping to support in resonating our complaints about this particular component and the frequency of its occurences. Nissan simply does not want to admit the faulty design and components and fears nothing by denying their customers. They feel invincible!!! Perhaps a collective suit will be an awakening that there should never be a unilateral attitude!! Please stay in touch.

The CAT between the firewall and the engine is the expensive one. However, when mine went out, I went hunting for an alternative because the dealer was giving me a pile about how hard it is to replace, etc.

They really screw you when they have you over a barrel.

I bought an Eastern CAT for my 2003 Murano for $275. I also had to buy a manifold for $200 from the dealer. I took the parts to a Midas shop. They installed them for about $250 labor. The dealer quoted me $1500; I paid ~$725 (half of dealer quote).

I think the dealer is smoking you. A good mechanic can get this work done with out breaking parts. The chances of breaking the brackets on the CAT sounds bogus. He might be eluding to stripping threads or breaking bolts. In that case, a good mechanic can fix those issues easliy. They have the tools to remove broken bolts or install new thread inserts, etc. I know because I am a mech. engineer.

If the dealer screws up the CAT make sure you tell him you want to see the physical parts before authorizing any work.

Reply if you need help. The Nissan dealers in the NE Atlanta area start sweating when I show up. I will beat "$&*@" down!

Nissan is missing the big picture here. We are all unhappy owners of defective Muranos or we wouldn't be here. Just this week I had two or three people ask about my Murano and you know what I told them. I am sure that you all do the same. It's time for me to get rid of it. It is just a money pit and source of frustration. I will never buy another Nissan because of the quality of the product and poorly trained Nissan mechanic's. It all starts at the top and it's "the Nissan way".

I hear you guys. We all will have to let go of our muranos sooner or later - the sooner the less costlier! But we should let nissan north america know how we feel. Here's a suggestion: After I received the rejection letter from their constomer service, it made me so upset because of their lack of professionalism and absence of any cosideration to our request, that I went on line and submitted my complaints to a few consumer protection offices just to have their organization on public record.

You can find your state's consumer affair (I did mine in NJ), but I suggest this site national site for a better chancce to have all complains in one place collectively. It is: consumeraffairs.com

When filing your complaints, try to include all details and the relationship the trasnfer case has with the CVT and therefore should have been convered under extended warranty recently offered by nissan.

If you all agree with this, please spread the word around on as many discussion boards as possible. This needs to get good attention and be stopped!! Best of luck.

Hi Jacob,I'm in the same boat you are in but with a 2003 Nissan Murano the first of its kind. At first I taught it was just me, but it looks like is not. My transmissions gave up after my warranty and I had to pay out of pocket, almost $5,000. Now Nissan has a reimbursement plan for those who don't know about it ,let me know I'll port the info., however they are not calling it a recall. Needless to say that the transfer case also gave up in the middle of the road shortly after (a few miles later) that I had to tow my car to the nearest gas station, and I had to pay again another $3,000. I'm talking to Nissan now, but they told me that the transfer case is not part of the transmission. But I've been told that it is. And thats how I found your blog. I'm waiting for another call from them this Monday April 05, 2010. But I definitely want them to acknowledge that my entire family's life has been in danger because of this faulty parts. If you need my testimonies I'll be glad to help you, and I have all the documents to prove it. Eddie

Mikey, who is telling you there is no warranty? A Nissan dealer? or some mechanic trying to sell you unnecessary services? There certainly is a warranty, and in fact Nissan a few months ago extended the warranty for all Murano CVT transmissions to 10 years or 120,000 miles in the United States. (in other countries too, I'm told, but I don't know the details outside the US)

I have the check engine light pop up and the car started draging at the stop lights 2 weeks ago, took it to the dealer the dealer found the code for Transmission pressure sensor and told me it is covered under warranty upto 120 k miles. So I told them to fix it after 1 week I get a call from the dealer (Clearlake Houston TX Nissan) they can't get the tranny out because all the brackets for cat convertes are rusted and they have to cut through them to get the tranny out and that will cost me 5K to fix it and Nissan won't pay for it since it is not a part of the tranny. I opened a claim case with Nissan and told them that they won't have to cut through all that, if they have not designed that faulty tranny, but they won't budge. I still owe 10K on this car and can't afford to spend another 5K in this economy. I have been fighting hard with Nissan, so far they have not budge. Any help in regards to whom to contact e-mail address info will be helpful. Any kind of info that can ease my Murano nightmare will be helpful.Regards

So basically your dealer want $5,000 to cut through some rusty brackets? I think you need a new dealer. Or find a welding shop who would probably do that for less than $100. (Heck, a local Midas shop used a welding torch to burn off some plastic trash bags that stuck to the converters on my minivan at no charge! )

Or are your catalytic converters bad and not your CVT? Are you still within the long warranty on emission equipment? (8 years and 80,000 miles on catalytic converters, according to Nissan's 2006 Warranty Information Booklet.)

Thanks for the reply. My car has 93000 miles on it. The dealer won't touch my car unless I sign the papers. I have no problems with the CAT converters or the exhaust system so far.The Local AAmco Trans shop quoted me $1200 for the labor to replace the tranny but Nissan won't ship the tranny to them, they say they can only ship it to a Nissan dealer.

Wow, it appears your dealer is trying to extort excessive charges for the bracket problem. Are there any other Nissan or even Infiniti dealers you can go to?

I can see why Nissan would say the bracket problem is not part of the warranty, but it sounds like they are OK with covering the normal parts and labor for the CVT problem. It appears your dealer's service department thinks you are forced to use them and sees this as an opportunity to generate revenue.

Dealers are independent businesses, free to charge whatever they want for vehicles or services. (by law, even - that is why manufacturers cannot force dealers to sell their vehicles at a fixed price) But that also means you can shop around to other dealers for their service business. If there are no other Nissan or Infiniti dealers close by, I would complain to Nissan about your dealer's attempt to charge excessive prices for the bracket problem because of the CVT warranty repair.

(I despise almost all auto dealer's service departments, who do everything, including lying about what the manufacturer requires, to charge for unnecessary services, like their "premium" packages for the 15,000/30,000 mile intervals.)

Could you have the AAMCO or another shop fix just the bracket problem, then go back to the dealer for the CVT problem?

Maybe your local paper or TV stations have a consumer advocate that might be interested in your story. The threat of bad publicity often does wonders with these kind of problems.

Everybody is on Toyota&#146;s case. Yes they made few mistakes here and there, but they are trying to fix it.What you think about Nissan? Everything is &#147;OK&#148;. They did not announce that Nissan Murano 2003-2010 has a problem. They decided to do it slick way. Send each owner of Murano a letter stating if you had a problem with CVT transmission go on line print a form(the name of the form is (Nissan CVT Customer Satisfaction Program Reimbursement Request Form) send it to us and prove of repair we will reimburse you for amount you spent. Slick is in it? And then the game begins. You send them form all documents needed but they ask for more documents and if you send everything what was asked, they will find the reason not to pay for repairs. In my case I almost got into the accident, my car stop in the middle of the road because all transmission fluid leaked out, thanks to the CVT part. How come Toyota is all over the news and Nissan is not?.

Are their 09 and 10 owners having transmission troubles? I haven't heard anyone with the new Murano complaining of transmission troubles. I thought the CVT problems were confined right now to the 03-07 1st Gen?

There are some 2009 owners that have some CVT problems reported - pretty serious actually-but most of them had earlier production run vehicles ( the 2009 muranos ha d start build date in october/nov 2007 actually. I havent seen any 2010 CVT problems yet. Would think thice about an AWD though. Transfer case issues are somewhat common. ( leaks at the junction of the transfer case and the transmission)

I don't get it either! Nissan has been very good about keeping this out of the news. They have got to be so relieved to see the heat going in the direction of Toyota right now. I filled out the form for Consumer Reports telling them about all of the problems I had with my '05 Nissan. But when the new Buying Guide came out they still list it as a great used car to buy with a great transmission. It just doesn't make sense . . . at all! I sold my car a few months ago and lost SO MUCH MONEY on it. I drove it to a local Nissan dealership to talk to them about all of the problems. They were shocked to know I had problems with my transmission - "never heard about any such thing before". Told me to bring my car to CARMAX, sell it and they'd give me a great deal on a new one. THEY DIDN'T EVEN WANT IT!

Actually the problem rate on the 2007 model year - the last year of the 1st generation model murano - was very low. There were a large number of technical service bulletins and a few recalls , particularly on the 2003 and 2004 model years, that caused good changes over time -- so the 2007 year was actually a good one as far as repairs and problems. 2009 was a first year new model, but I think a lot of those bugs have been worked out since the 2009s went into production, which was actually in late 2007 of all things. So 2010 is a good model year for Nissan on the Murano so far, and their third generation murano, due out in 2012, probably will be a major winner.

I everyone, listen some poster by the name of madpistol posted this on the Altima CVT forum and I thought it made a lot of sense in explaining why a lot of 1st Gen Murano owners are having so much trouble with transmission issues and failures. I'm not saying Nissan should be off the hook, they most certainly shouldn't. but I found it insightful about where the CVT started and where it is going and explaining why some people are experiencing lags or jerkiness at times. I personally, in my 2010 Max have not experience this yet, but I only have 7k miles so I have no idea if it will ever happen or if it will, not yet anyway.

"However, I do get some jerkiness at speeds under 40mph. My guess is it's just because the CVT has a limited number of set ratios at lower RPMs. I know it's the CVT "shift-logic" because if you move it over to manual mode and shift it that way, the engine is very smooth and pretty refined feeling. There's absolutely no jerking in manual mode other than what you feel when you shift between ratios.

(Now enter theory stuff)

I believe that with the next generation of Altima we'll see both engines get significantly redesigned. Now that Nissan has established that CVT-based vehicles are what they wish to pursue, I think they're going to start designing their engines around this. As of right now, they're currently designing the CVT to be compatible with their chosen engines. However, if you design the ENGINE to also be compatible with the CVT, the refinement will reach a whole new level.

The current engines are very content with a manual gearbox, but a little sluggish with the CVT. That's because the engines aren't designed to take advantage of a CVT's gearless system. In other words, the engines have very specific power bands, and thus, it only feels energetic when the engine is in that power band. I believe we're going to see more torque and horsepower from lower RPMs and the peak will be far lower in the rev-band as well. That way, cars will feel much more energetic from a stop AND there won't be a "flat line" on power between 2000-3000RPMs (in the 4-cyl). This should also eliminate jerkiness from the lower revs, as the CVT won't have to shift as much to keep the power up.

3rd (future) generation CVT: engines designed for CVT, MUCH quicker acceleration, more linear power delivery.

This is only speculation, but if you're a fan of CVT based Nissan cars, I think it's about to get a lot better in the 3rd generation. The first 2 generations were test beds to see if it would work. Now that Nissan knows it works (and is selling well) they should invest a lot more in their powerplants this time around. Only time will tell though. "

CR, JD Power, and even MT are no good anymore for reviews and unbias ratings/comparison assessments. When MT can rate the Camry #1 above the new Sonata, Fusion, and Altima for overall fun, driving dynamics, and overall package, etc, after all the recent recalls and safety problems with those cars, they must be either bias for Toyota or smoking some serious dope. I'm seriously thinking of canceling my subscription at the end of this next cycle.

As the years are going on, its getting harder and harder to find magazines or professional car forum that doesn't have bias in its assessments.

Right now, edmunds, autoblog, C&D, Road and Track, and Popular Mechanics are probably your only bets left for fair and balanced/unbias comparisons and reviews.

I'm finally turning off my tracking for this issue. Nissan did reimburse me for the cost of my transmission at 68k miles in my '05 Murano (which went out 2 yrs ago). My dealer acknowleged the problem back then and I only paid half of the $5,800 cost. So, I was fully reimbursed and I used the money to put down on a 2010 GMC Acadia. Decided to buy American this time. Wish me luck!

May I ask, how much was the repair for your windshield wiper motor? My driver side one occasionally stops working and now, last friday, stopped all together. Super annoying. Taking it to the dealership but I don't really want to get railed so I'm looking for an average price.

They are lying, :confuse: CERTIFICATIONI (We), ___________________________________________________________________________ , hereby submit this form requestingreimbursement for expenses incurred in connection with repair or replacement and/or related towing of the CVT onmy model year 2003&#150;2010 Nissan. I certify that these repairs have been made to this vehicle and that they werenot previously paid for, in whole or in part, by Nissan

I have a 2000 Nisson Serena with a CVT. It gets stuck in low when in slow or stop and go traffic. It will not dissengage unless i stop and turn off the van for 20 minutes. It also slips into as high ratio after going up inclines, almost like an anti-slip mode. Whats wrong and can it be easily fixed?